Up the ante, Mr. Cuomo

Our opinion: The governor needs to double down on redistricting, not fold.

What does a governor do when virtually an entire Legislature breaks a campaign promise, turns a deaf ear to all criticism, and then has the gall to make yet another promise that everyone can be pretty sure it will break?

There are unsettling signs that Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who says he wants to change the Albany game, may be resigning himself to a deal on redistricting that pretty much gives the Legislature everything it wants.

He shouldn’t. This is a fight worth fighting. New Yorkers deserve a system that lets the voters pick their representatives, not the other way around.

This latest exercise in redistricting has been marked by one cynical ploy after another by lawmakers. First, they promised, in writing, during the 2010 election, to support independent, nonpartisan redistricting. But then they didn’t do it. Senate Republicans refused to honor their word, and the Assembly Democrats went along.

When a legislative committee produced maps that were so clearly partisan that Mr. Cuomo threatened to veto them, they went back to draw presumably better maps. But then they didn’t do that, either. And Senate Republicans, desperate to hold their tenuous majority, now insist on making taxpayers pay for a new 63rd district upstate, created solely to help keep the Senate in GOP hands.

The trade-off, such as it is, would be a constitutional amendment to make the redistricting process marginally more independent and nonpartisan. But the amendment the Legislature has offered to pass would leave it pretty much in control of redistricting. Some reform!

Moreover, such a constitutional amendment requires votes by two consecutive legislatures and then the public. So this Legislature could vote for the amendment, and the next Legislature could kill it. And since most of the lawmakers who broke their 2010 oath will probably be relected this fall, thanks to the gerrymandered maps that they’ve drawn, why shouldn’t we figure they’ll go back on their word again? Why trust them now?

What to do?

First, Mr. Cuomo can’t settle for these maps. He can veto them and let a court draw new lines. As we saw in the case of congressional districts last week, where a judge stepped in, the courts can do a pretty good, expedient job.

Third, the governor should insist that a constitutional amendment be accompanied by a statute — which can become law this year — that does everything the amendment would do. That way, independent redistricting would be the law unless the Legislature can convince a governor to overturn it, or muster a veto-proof majority in both chambers, which isn’t too likely.

And fourth, the law should provide that the first redistricting under the new independent process be done before the next legislative elections, in 2014, not after the 2020 census. That’s what we were promised.

You want to change the game, Mr. Cuomo? Start, as you said you would, by demanding an independent, non-partisan system of drawing legislative and congressional districts in this state. The voters — and all those citizens who don’t run for office because they know this game is rigged — can take it from there.